ABOUT

I am one of eight children and the youngest of the first five. I grew up on 35 acres south of Sydney before I moved to Sydney. As a young girl, I had some big dreams. I wanted to be a writer, a journalist, maybe a music programmer, the radio kind, or a music producer. I’m not sure I have fulfilled them all, but it's been a lot of fun trying.

My first writing job was when I was twelve years old. A friend, Gretel Souter, and I began writing a column for our local newspaper called Pet of the Week. I liked the people I met and the stories they told, most of which didn’t make it to the press. I also published a brief article in The Sydney Morning Herald about the Dharug people, the indigenous people that had once lived on the land where I grew up.

I am one of the lucky few who were educated at university for free. It was still a meagre existence, and I relied heavily on the goodwill of flatmates, the backstop of my grandfather and the tuition of my eldest sister, Lindy, who taught me to sew all my own clothes. Once, a fellow student asked me out on a date. "If possible," he said, without a shred of kindness, "could you wear a different skirt than the one you wear every day to university?" I was mortified and declined. Persistent, he invited me to his 21st birthday party as his 'date'. Justice was served when I accidentally upturned a tray of drinks all over some guests. I fled just as the speeches began, when I knew it would be impossible to stop me.

To make ends meet while studying, I worked as an usherette in a local picture theatre. Mercifully, the job came with a uniform and paid double and a half time on Sundays. I became an expert at ignoring rude patrons, although there were times when I was tempted to shine my torch in their eyes.

After university, my first job was working for The Australian Encyclopaedia. It spoke to my love of Australian history, inspired by my history teacher, Ailsa Murphy. My first task was to clip articles about small country towns in Australia with more than 100 residents from all the major newspapers. I had to write entries on each of these towns for the new edition. The editor didn’t trust me with the big country towns, just the small ones, towns a bit like Leslie Knope’s Pawnee. I learned a lot about writing and editing, and how to avoid my boss. She was a heavy drinker and smoker, and apt to be more loquacious after lunch. An afternoon trapped in her office could lead to serious health issues.

Eventually, I moved on to become a book editor. The first book I edited was Ethnic Family Values by the Institute of Family Studies. It fostered in me a desire to travel and to work overseas, to experience first-hand the feelings of displacement, foreignness and eventually acceptance that so many people experience when moving countries. 

In the early 1990s, I moved to New York as a publisher in new media for HarperCollins. The web had just been invented, and CD-ROMs and Laserdiscs were still a thing. We didn’t have mobile phones, Skype or social media, only letter writing and reverse trunk calls. I was probably lonelier and more isolated than I realised, but it was New York, and I was in my mid-thirties. I learned to drink whisky sours, was a member of the National Arts Club, and once sat down in a bar next to Brad Pitt. Sadly, it wasn’t Hugh Jackman.

I returned to Australia to start a family, and my relationship with storytellers expanded from books, newspapers and the internet, to television and radio, which taught me a lot about working with engineers, the odd narcissist and well, just some very highly talented people.

In 2009, I founded and ran a global and social media site for book lovers called thereadingroom.com. It was initially quite successful but difficult to scale, and sadly, it closed in 2016.

I’m also a non-executive director. It’s a great way to work with smart people, to support them to succeed, ensuring Australian businesses can play on a global stage. We are a ‘can-do’ kind of nation, and capable of turning our hands to many things. That is what I love doing.

In the 2026 Australia Day honours, I was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for 'significant service to literature and to the publishing industry’.